AuthorTopic: Advice for starting a youtube channel (Read 2205 times)

So I've decided to start a youtube channel and have all the resources I need (recording, content, editing tools, etc). I also created special accounts for youtube, email, and social media. Now I find myself stumped on actually setting up the channel itself. The idea is that it will be a gaming lets play type channel with the occasional odd video here or there. The things I am trying to figure out is what to use as a banner for the page as well as what profile picture to use.

Should I use my actual photo, make some sort of brand like symbol, a cartoony avatar, just the name of the channel, etc.

Do I need to hire someone to draw/animate?

Should I make a special business email account to separate from the channel's email account?

Should I have a 10 second intro for my videos?

Should my channel have an introductory video?

am I thinking too hard about all this?

I am pretty much looking for some advice while I try to figure this junk out. If this is the wrong place to post this, please move it to the appropriate section of the forum.

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You see, there are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity. Indeed that's what we provide in our own modest, humble, insignificant... oh, fuck it. - M. Gustave

Symbol. Avatars are too small, and you'll get plenty of face time if you want.

Eventually, depending on your format.

Depends on whether or not you can handle email all in one lump. If you're planning on doing a lot of public interaction via email, it's probably best to keep that chocolate from touching the peanut butter.

Certainly not more than 10 seconds, IMO. Unless it is an intro people will love to the extreme, it's best to keep it minimal. Better a 10 second lead out and 4 second ID/title card. Remember, you want to be sticky and find ways to keep viewers in your channel. Intros get dull. If do go with an intro, consider doing a lead in. See SciShow for examples.

Has anyone here ever uploaded anything to youtube? I am getting this thing where it doesn't upload. Stays at 0% with no upload count down timer. I checked the youtube troubleshooting and all the fixes I can find online are really old or don't work. Is this common?

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You see, there are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity. Indeed that's what we provide in our own modest, humble, insignificant... oh, fuck it. - M. Gustave

Activity in increasing security in browsers to a paranoid level is moving so fast that it is hard for web sites to keep up. I would at least try all three big-name browsers before looking further.

This paranoia is even affecting me at work. I am running an Exchange Server 2010, and the webmail component can no longer be used to add an attachment to an email because of changes in the browsers happening just now.

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"Being human, having your health; that's what's important."(from: Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi )"As long as we're all living, and as long as we're all having fun, that should do it, right?"(from: The Eccentric Family )

Thanks for the help guys I think I just figured it out thanks to some inspiration from pwhodges. In firefox you have to go out and download an add-in to upload youtube files. Wish something on youtube mentioned that....

and never mind. worked only once but never again....

« Last Edit: 08 Jun 2015, 16:32 by LeeC »

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You see, there are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity. Indeed that's what we provide in our own modest, humble, insignificant... oh, fuck it. - M. Gustave

I really hope I will not have this difficulty so frequently in the future. Processing should not take an entire day only o fail...twice!

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You see, there are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity. Indeed that's what we provide in our own modest, humble, insignificant... oh, fuck it. - M. Gustave

been using .avi files which youtube says is compatible. Should I switch to MP4s or something?

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You see, there are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity. Indeed that's what we provide in our own modest, humble, insignificant... oh, fuck it. - M. Gustave

It's been a while since I've uploaded so I'm not best for advice. You could try converting or rendering again in MP4 and see if it uploads faster but I'm learning myself so I'm not sure which format is best for balancing size versus quality. A quick Google shows contradicting answers.

I just did a short 10 minute recording as an MP4 instead of an .AVI It uploaded and is processing rather quickly. I did some research and the MP4 compresses it without compromising the video in a way better than the other formats that are able to upload to youtube. SO I am putting it to the test.

I also discovered that after you upload a video, it is not immediately HD and take awhile. Basically the first time youtube processes it is to get it up on the site and make it watchable. There is a second "silent" process in the background that translates it into an HD format. Depending on the length and size of the video and can take awhile.

I seriously wonder if other youtubers like Markiplier or GameGrumps deal with this, or how they mitigate it.

« Last Edit: 16 Jul 2015, 18:43 by LeeC »

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You see, there are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity. Indeed that's what we provide in our own modest, humble, insignificant... oh, fuck it. - M. Gustave

Pilchard is probably right. Planning ahead, preferably way ahead, is probably how you play the game.

Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of people out there pantsing their way to success, but having your ducks lined up long before they go public is just easier. If something goes wrong, you can see it, adjust and correct for it. Even if you're going to be in a situation where you are trying to be first with content, that situation will rare. The normal is just going to be grinding content to try to keep people coming back to your content.

Being first probably isn't nearly as good a replay value, anyway. Replay value isn't as good as style (though "what style is" is hard to pin down). Better to be the 400th video on a topic that's number one in view count than to be the first video that's 400th in view count.

Youtube's method of tracking views is, itself, part of how you go from maybe viable to maybe viral, and from maybe viral to maybe vihart. And that system has a built in pause button. Brady at Numberphile talked to a google drone directly on the subject, and there's a point where Youtube stops upping your view count to be sure it's not foul play, and then starts adding views in drabs to make sure it's a real view (the second being less about fraud and more about making sure that the content was delivered). The point being, there's no big advantage to being quick to post content. Better results, long term, come from being regular, like a good fiber diet.

I have 2 youtube accounts. 1 is my personal I set up long ago when I first use youtube and use it for watching/commenting. 2 is going to be my actual youtube channel but is "under construction." I am using my personal one to figure out how things work and once I am ready to "launch" the actual channel I will start uploading to the new one. So I am definitely going the route of "having your ducks lined up long before they go public." The major rough parts at this point I think is figuring out how youtube works as far as uploading and not getting failures to load or process (using MP4 format seems to be the trick, and you all's advice is very enlightening!) and figuring out how to draw so I can make title cards and a channel background (adobe illustrator and inkscape are not very intuitive...). I've already got my avatar/symbol done. Once those are set I plan to set up monetization and record content for at least 3 weeks worth of content before launch.

The sad thing is work(as in my day job, not the youtube channel) is so soul crushing its hard to bring myself to work on any of it. The original launch date was going to be June/July

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You see, there are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity. Indeed that's what we provide in our own modest, humble, insignificant... oh, fuck it. - M. Gustave

For drawing, you probably want Photoshop or GIMP. Vector programs don't draw so much as they manipulate shapes.

Which means you can totally draw, but you have to think of from a different perspective entirely. Rather that, for example, drawing a curve, and then another curve to give the impression of one thing atop another, you create the shap of the first thing and then layer the shape of the next on top of it. A lot of the people I know who work in vector illustration start with raster, and convert to vector Which means, draw in Photoshop or GIMP then convert with illustrator or inkscape.

They usually work with line art in raster and do color and effects in vector. This makes sense, because vector programs want to treat raster gradients as multiple different objects, whereas the native vector tools will result in more compact files.